Modern communication and data networks, such as those based on Ethernet Bridging technology, are comprised of nodes that forward data frames across the network. To transfer the frames across the network, a plurality of network standards are used. For instance, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.1Qaw standard for Data Dependent and Data Driven Connectivity Fault Management (DDCFM) is being developed to diagnose problems that are sensitive to the content of the transferred data. Such problems are difficult to reproduce with procedures such as Loopback that are based on the exchange of control messages rather than user data.